Ingrid has been saving up for a Nintendo Switch. Apparently sharing the one that Adrian has is not good enough. It’s her own money, so whatever.

Buying a completely new one is expensive, so she searched on Blocket and found several ads. Normally when buying via Blocket I’ve met up with the seller and done the deal physically. These sellers were not in Stockholm though, so that wouldn’t work. But a Switch is so expensive that paying up front and hoping that we will get something is not an acceptable risk.

Blocket has various suggestions for services that help mitigate the risk when buying online. The first seller wasn’t willing to use those services. That made loud alarm bells ring in my head and we decided not to deal with that guy.

The next person was more willing. We exchange all kinds of information and signed an online digital contract with our official e-IDs.

And still! As soon as the contract was signed and the money paid, the seller went no contact. Didn’t reply to our chat messages or SMS:s, and didn’t pick up the phone. Eric called Blocket and Blocket looked into the information they had on the guy. Whatever information they found led them to recommended that we should file a police report immediately. Sigh. Despite all our precautions, we got scammed!

Ingrid was in tears. Not because of the money, because we said we’d cover the loss, but because she had been looking forward so much to playing Animal Crossing and Zelda and all the other games. Now we’d have to start all over again.

She was in luck, though, because almost immediately she found a new ad, and this time in Stockholm. So I drove there and we did the deal the old-fashioned way (well, not very, since the payment is digital) and she got her Switch after all.

Now she is overjoyed about all the cute things she can do in Animal Crossing.